France, Oct. 15 -- With less than a fortnight to go before presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire, three other west African states- all ruled by military juntas- have been waging a disinformation campaign to disrupt the vote.

Accounts linked to the juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have, among other things, announced the (fake) death of Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara and alerted followers to a (fictitious) coup.

In August, several accounts with total followers in the tens of thousands "attempted to show there had been an insurrection to incite unrest" in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire's National Agency for Information System Security (ANSSI) said.

At the time thousands of opponents were protesting peacefully against Ouattara's re-ele...